Le Turdy France has become a big, steaming pot of tasteless oatmeal. Average Joe thinks it’s boring and stupid. Hobby bicycle people think it’s boring and stupid. Profamateur Cat 4 underwear models think it’s boring and stupid. And now, in a new twist, even the riders think it’s boring and stupid.

This is like David Lee Roth admitting that he can’t sing. Everyone knows it’s true, but why’d ya have to come out and SAY it?

Various reasons have been put forth to explain the mind-numbing boredom that sets in after just a few minutes of watching terribly underfed chickens, bones poking through their underwear, slam into motorcycles that have no business on the course. Here are the biggies that have oatmealized Le Tour:

Robots. No one enjoys watching robots.

Chris Froome. If you’re going to dope up a robot, make him handsome, like Eddy or Lance or Fabian.

Radios. If you don’t think radios remove all excitement and fun, look at the average 8-year-old from a rich helicopter-parent family that controls his every move.

Gore. Pro underwear racing is dangerous beyond belief. There aren’t enough sick people who enjoy bloodshed, closed head injuries, and Hoogerland meat-shredding in the general population (NASCAR excepted) to get pleasure out of this choreographed slaughterhouse.

Power data. Use a power meter for three weeks and tell me how much it has increased the joy and spontaneity in your cycling.

Freak show. We know they’re volcano doping because they’re riding faster now than they did in the EPO Era. Yawwwwwn.

Dentist chair syndrome. What is already miserable is worse because it’s so long. It takes three weeks to find out which doper climbs one mountain faster than his podium rivals by two minutes? Really?

France. We can’t stand another castle viewed from a chopper. We just can’t.

Yellow. Check your comic books, especially anything with the Two-Gun Kid. Yellow is the color for chickens and cowards. “Why, you yaller-bellied varmint, I’ma gonna fill you plumb full of lead.”

Names. Most Euro names are too hard to pronounce. No red-blooded American will watch a sport with names that don’t sound like “Ruth” or “Aaron.” “Gretzky” gets a pass because he was, you know, not bad.

So after reviewing these terrible problems, I’ve taken the old admonition to heart that “You shouldn’t raise problems if you don’t have solutions.” Here they are:

Humans. Make the Tour open to actual humans. Hairy legged, pot-bellied, flatulent couch potatoes welcome! It will be awesome to watch your Uncle Fred out on his bike for the first time since 1973 struggle up the ONLY STAGE IN THE TOUR, L’Alpe d’Huez.

Give Chris Froome his own race. He’ll be the only participant and he will win every year. We’ll call it the Tour de Froome. That way he can eat a few thousand cheeseburgers, stop volcano doping, and look human again.

Coach ride-behinds. Don’t ban radios, but make the schlumpy DS’s follow along on their bicycles instead of in a follow car. If they still have the lungs to shout instructions from 30 miles back while climbing L’Alpe, more power to them. If half of them keel over, no worries. Your average DS can be replaced with a 3rd-Grade dropout drug addict dope dealer.

Moto licensing. Require anyone who wants to follow or mix with Le Tour on a motorcycle to pass a certification test that involves wrestling hungry tigers. Survivors will be required to pass a crash dummy test where they are slammed into the back of a truck going downhill at 50. Successful applicants can safely follow the peloton from 100 miles back.

Strava. Require all riders who use power in the race to post up better numbers than Thorfinn-Sassquatch. Those who fail will have their power meters confiscated.

Bike motors. Since we’re letting Uncle Fred race Le Tour, which now only has one stage, everyone who’s not a doper or professional underwear model gets a bike motor. Who wouldn’t enjoy watching Nairo Quintana getting dropped by a fellow whose shorts stop halfway up the San Andreas Fault buttcrack?

Cut Le Tour. One stage. 35 miles. Winner takes all. In alternate years it will be held around Chris Lotts’s parking lot crit course in Compton.

Expand the meaning of “France.” The world has lots of cool places to see. In non-Compton years, stick Le Tour in guaranteed bike-friendly places like Palos Verdes Estates, San Bernardino, or Houston.

Black and red. Those are some winning colors. Black for “aggression,” red for “blood.”

Americanize. Remember how in your Spanish class in junior high Mrs. Simon gave everyone a Spanish name (mine was “Francisco,” and I loved it). Give all the riders American names. Peter Sagan is Pete Smith. Roman Kreuziger is Robbie Johnson. Fabian Cancellara is John Davis. Nairo Quintan is Bill Jones. Chris Froome is Suzy Small. You get the idea.

In Italy they are describing Vincenzo Nibali’s comeback and Giro d’Italia victory as one of the greatest comebacks in professional cycling. Cycling in the South Bay sat down with Nibs to get the skinny on this most incredible, amazing, unbelievable, hard-to-swallow, astonishing, fact-defying, physiologically impossible, doubtful, suspicious, believable if you’re a complete fool, impressive and astounding victory

CitSB: How’d you do it?

Nibs: It was a miracle, a holy gift from above.

CitSB: A week to go in the race and you had crumbled, your bid was in ruins after losing 37 seconds on the big Dolomite stage to Corvara, and then you collapsed quicker than a Trump quote run through Fact-Check, losing close to two minutes in the mountain time trial to Alpe di Siusi.

Nibs: It was the depth of defeat, I had lost everything, the Holy Father was up all night praying in the sadness.

CitSB: Then you pulled a wanker move of the highest order, losing a further 1:47 on the relatively easy mountain stage to Andalo, a stage that, frankly, my grandmother could have beaten you on.

Nibs: It was zero, nothing, niente, everyone was stepping on my testicles. To bed every night, crying like the baby with dry teat.

CitSB: You seemed close to throwing in the towel and quitting the race. What was going on?

Nibs: I had the problem with my forma, everyt’ing in destitution, length of crank, motivazione, but it was over for me.

CitSB: So what happened?

Nibs: My team manager Alexander Vinokourov told me to pray to the Baby Jesus and only do the pan y agua and he go to Kazakhstan on special overnight trip and come back with special vitamin drink made from root of lubbertink.

Nibs: I know what you t’inking. I have the two giant stages in the Alps and am out of the gasoline. How Nibali he can win? Dat’s what you t’inking. Nibali he doping shit-ass. Dat’s what you t’inking. Nibali cheat-ass doping cheat-ass bici lying volcano-doping shit-ball, dat’s what you t’inking.

CitSB: Well, yes.

Nibs: Itsa root of lubbertink and Sicilian pride and instinct, and destiny child when Kruijswijk fall off his bici onto head, putting Dutchman in trouble and bandage. I believe in my resurrection and complete masterpiece by dropping Chaves on the Colle della Lombarda like smelly sack of turd off tall cliff.

CitSB: Physiologically it doesn’t add up. One week you can’t pedal, then in the hardest week of the race you grow wings.

Nibs: Itsa look funny but I gotta trust Vino. He know how to pull the pepper outta the sausage.

CitSB: Anything else?

Nibs: Pan y agua and Sicilian pride.

CitSB: And root of lubbertink.

Nibs: And root of lubbertink.

END

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Rapha announced today that it would end its partnership with Team Sky at the end of 2016. Cycling in the South Bay sat down with Chauncy Chalmers, CEO of Rapha, to talk about the divorce.

CitSB: What was it? Irreconcilable differences?

Chauncy: Oh, far from it. We’ve both benefited immensely from the partnership and are leaving on the best of terms. We plan to remain friends, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without Team SKY.

CitSB: And where are you today?

Chauncy: We are the dominant player in the pretentious bicycle clothing market. $345 for a pink plastic vest. See? We OWN it.

CitSB: Yes, but there’s more to your success than that, isn’t there? Rapha is regarded as one of the best fitting, most superbly designed clothing manufacturers in the bike industry, combining the understated English qualities of Savile Row with the hardman exploits of volcano dopers. That’s what they say over at Red Kite Prayer, anyway.

Chauncy: Don’t believe everything you read; that guy was nominated for Wanker of the Year. Our stuff is made by the same underpaid Chinese garment workers as every other label. And get this–the average Chinese worker makes $19.81 per day, just under $2.50 an hour. Pretty sweet mark-up, I’d say.

CitSB: Schweet, for sho. So why the break-up with SKY? Seemed like a match made in heaven. Pretentious British label hawked by marginal gains volcano dopers with funny accents that sound vaguely aristocratic to the untrained American ear, which can’t distinguish between the Queen’s English, Ozzie Jibberjabber, and Pig Latin.

Chauncy: Yes, the American market is what we’ve always referred to as “gullible.” And it certainly has paid the bills.

CitSB: So why the breakup? Faux English tailored cycling kits with a vaguely 70’s design in updated 21st Century Pink; volcano dopers who talk funny and millions of tubby Americans who think Rapha’s been around since Eddy Merckx.

Chauncy: The market is saturated.

CitSB: How can that be? There are ten new baby seals on the NPR every week, ripe for clubbing and for new Rapha kits and for 100% full carbon parts made of pure carbon. It’s only just begun!

Chauncy: Our market research shows that with the exception of New York, Los Angeles, and parts of North County San Diego, the pretentious asshole demographic is saturated and shrinking.

CitSB: Impossible.

Chauncy: It’s true. Most people who ride bicycles aren’t snobby twits who crave approval by being treated rudely and looked down on. What’s worse, most people who ride bicycles don’t really care what their bicycle clothing looks like.

CitSB: Blasphemy! How do you know that?

Chauncy: We took our team of designers to the Tour of Palm Springs last year to examine the market first hand. Three of our designers are still in therapy. It gets worse. We randomly sampled riders, asking them if they liked Wiggins better than Froome. The answer blew our mind.

CitSB: What did they say?

Chauncy: They all said the same thing: “Who?”

CitSB: Shocking. And so you’ve pulled the plug. What’s Team SKY going to be wearing for 2017 then?

Chauncy: It’s a secret, but I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it off the record.

CitSB: You can trust me.

Chauncy: They’ve hired one of your local guys here in LA to do their kits. Apparently one of the designs here has really caught their fancy.

CitSB: Which one is that?

Chauncy: Big Purple, or Orange, or something.

CitSB: Big Orange?

Chauncy: Yes, that’s the one. You know them? They must have a pretty understated look to catch Team SKY’s eye.

“Yesterday I was really sad about all the volcano doping allegations,” said Froome. “But today I’m mad. Contador’s dangerous riding was really dangerous. It was extremely dangerous, so much so that I could have gotten really badly hurt. That just makes me mad.”

When it was pointed out that, generally speaking, two hundred cyclists crammed onto French roads no wider than a tampon while racing shoulder-to-shoulder downhill at speeds exceeding 100 kph was a fairly dangerous endeavor, Froome reacted angrily and with a lot of madness. “I have a right to be mad about this. I think Contador was taking too many risks and evidently he did go a little too fast, he couldn’t even control his own speed and crashed. That put me in danger.”

Spanish madly react to Froome’s anger

Contador rejected Froome’s concerns, appearing to be mad that Froome was mad at him. “He is, how you say in English, a big pussy? Is true, I made the crash in front of him going a little too much fast, no bueno. Now he’s crying about peligroso? It’s the bike racing. Que pussy.”

Soon-to-be-Sir David Brailsford, babysitter of Team Sky and curator of the team’s Hello Kitty collection, was also very mad, despite being sad only a day earlier. “This makes me mad. Chris could have lost the Tour. Do you know how mad he would have been then, not to mention getting very sad again? He has ridden an amazing race. The others should be giving up, not pushing the pace on the downhill and somehow trying to gain a time advantage which makes Chris awfully mad. We talked about this amongst ourselves, and the whole team was mad. Just really mad. Angry mad.”

Teammate Richie Porte, who is hardly ever mad, was hopping mad. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,” said Porte in his thick Australian accent that sounded like a cross between English and a throat disease. “G’day mate, shrimps on the barbie and all that. Just because I’m a banana bender don’t mean these bities ‘n bludgers can act like a bounce on me mate, eh?”

Froome goes from mad to happy after Thursday’s queen stage on l’Alpe d’Huez

Despite being sad, then mad, Froome found himself feeling happy after Team Sky released his power data to Dr. Professor Jacques Tati, the respected French physiologist and comic film director. According to Tati, “Froome’s power profiles show what we would expect within the range of a human with a V02 max that is at the limit of what is possible for a human, although suspect for a gangly insect, which he may well be.”

Froome was very happy to hear Tati’s analysis. “I’m really happy to hear Dr. Tati’s findings and his take on it, and basically to back us up and say that these performances are very good and strong, clean, sporting performances. I’m not mad anymore, and I forgive Alberto. I am happy now.”

Dr. Tati pointed out that he had not concluded that the performances were clean. “I only said he was normal for someone who is completely abnormal. Whether he is clean or not, who knows?”

British cycling public slowly getting happy

As Froome’s lock on the 2013 Tour looks unshakeable, the cynical, sad, mad, and fundamentally grumpy British public has slowly shown signs of being happy about Froome’s happiness.

Nigel Rathbone, a waiter at the famed “Warm Beer and Fish” pub, was guardedly happy. “I s’pose I’m happy, yeh, if it means we beat the French at something. Yeh. Why not, eh?”

Cloretha Clammonger, a charwoman in the City’s toney central district, was also potentially happy. “I reckon I could be ‘appy, I could. I’d rather be grumpy, but you know Chris is just a South African, which isn’t really English, right? Now if he was a right good Englishman, I s’pose I’d be ‘appier than a whore at a cardinal’s convention, I would.”

Lost in the press reports of rest day haircuts and predictions for the remaining stages, it took almost twenty-four hours in the news cycle for the World Anti Doping Agency to act on Tour de France leader Chris Froome’s shocking admission during a media interview.

WADA officers immediately charged Froome with a “non-analytical” positive, a scenario in which a rider can be accused of doping based on circumstantial evidence, written or spoken admissions, or convincing evidence other than standard urine or blood analyses.

Jean-Paul Smails, Chief Inquistor for WADA, laid out the charges. “He’s admitted to volcano doping, which is a violation of Rule 2.281(a), Subsection 12, which states that ‘No athlete may sleep on or otherwise utilize volcanoes to enhance performance.'”

Team Sky boss David Brailsford reacted angrily. “You’re kidding me, right? There’s no way he volcano doped. He misspoke. They slept on a mountain, perhaps, but no one knew it was a volcano. We thought it was a large mountain. We checked it out with the Mallorcan authorities and they assured us it was a mountain, not a volcano.”

Froome also rejected the charge. “I’ll wait for the B sample to come back. There’s no way that was a real volcano, and if it was, it’s because someone slipped it into my meat. It was tainted Mallorcan meat.”

When pressed as to why he’d referred to it as a volcano if it really wasn’t one, Froome shot back. “‘Volcano’ is slang for ‘boner’ in the UK, maybe you Yanks don’t know that, eh? I was sleeping on my mate’s boner, which is like a mini-volcano, get it? Stupid Yank reporters, go learn y’self some English.”

The Mallorcan Meat Cooperative, a national meat marketing collective, angrily rejected Froome’s claims that its meat was tainted. “We handle our meat carefully, regularly, religiously almost. When our meat leaves our hands it’s guaranteed to be fresh, firm, and free from additives such as clenbuterol or volcano. Our legal counsel is looking into filing defamation charges against Mr. Froome for claiming that we mishandle our meat.”

WADA investigation gathers steam

Officials for the French AFLD and WADA insisted that they would pursue the investigation, but the UCI remained skeptical. “We don’t believe he volcano doped,” said UCI chief Paddy McQuaid. “Although his team did buy us a new volcano testing machine to catch other lava cheats, that has had no influence on our posture in the matter. We don’t treat the stars any differently from the routiniers.”

Francois Vichy de Foiegras of the AFLD disagreed. “Ee eez vocano doping, n’cest pas? Why else he sleeping on ze volcano? Le Mt. Venoux est un volcano aussi, et we believe zat he gets un avantage avec zees volcano doping.” Later that evening the Team Sky bus was searched by the forensic unit of the French National Anti Doping SWAT Team, but no magma was found, although investigators were seen carrying large plastic bags of rocks off the “Froome Wagon” along with what appeared to be most of the team’s Hello Kitty collection.

Links to Italy?

Froome has worked with notorious volcano doping physician Michele Ferrari, although both deny that the connection involves volcanoes. “I use him for his training plans,” said Froome. “He is a good man. He’s taught me so much about how not to blow, but nothing that involved a volcano, I can assure you.”

Ferrari also denied helping athletes such as Froome volcano dope. “I don’t do such a thing, but if I did, so what? A bit of volcano is no more dangerous than a liter of orange juice. Except for when Pompeii was obliterated by Vesuvius or Krakatoa. But that is completely different.”

At press time, Froome’s team physician, Bugsy Malone, provided Tour de France officials with a prescription for volcano enemas, although it had apparently been backdated to precede Froome’s mountaintop trip to Mallorca. “Chris had terrible saddle sores and a bloody anus. I prescribed the volcano cleanse for him in order to stop the drip and reduce the swelling.”

Team Sky has scheduled a press conference for 6:00 AM tomorrow to explain its official position regarding these allegations.